Robert Redford kicks off Sundance 2013

Park City, Utah — Robert Redford may well be a Hollywood icon, but he says he’s now swimming in the same pool as the rest of the independent filmmaking community.

Having made two independent features in the last five years, The Conspirator and the forthcoming The Company You Keep, Redford says he’s now very familiar with the ups and downs of the indie scene, and overall, he’s encouraged by the strength of the community.

But he takes no credit, even though as founder and creator of the Sundance Institute and adjunct film festival, he’s largely seen as the indie guru.

“I’m in the same boat as everyone else. And that’s probably a good thing,” said Redford at the opening news conference for Sundance 2013.

Speaking to the assembled press corps at the historic Egyptian Theatre on Main Street, Redford said he’s learned to develop a thick skin in order to handle the slings and arrows of rejection.

“I may even have to develop a hide!” he added with a grin.

In response to a question on the entertainment industry’s role in propagating violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings, Redford related a story about driving in Los Angeles recently and looking at the billboards advertising entertainment products.

“One billboard had a couple, a well-dressed couple, with guns,” he said. “And it made me wonder: Does my industry think guns will sell tickets?”

Redford said it’s a question more than a comment, but that’s the beauty of what’s happening right now, he says. “The dialogue (about gun control) is actually happening.”

Seeming even more laid back than usual as he repeated the same mission statement he’s been chanting for the past three decades — “it’s about diversity, and letting the audience decide” — Redford also talked about his one disappointment since Sundance started.

“We’ve been supporting independent film here for, what, 30 years? But in that time, no one as asked me to be in their film,” said Redford.

“Maybe they see me as a mainstream guy, or they think I’m retired. So when J.C. Chandor called me and said he had a script he’d written with me in mind … I got so excited that I did it. And it had no dialogue; it was super low-budget.”

The film, All is Lost, is the creation of Chandor, a first-time filmmaker who found overnight fame a few years ago at the festival in the wake of Margin Call’s high-profile debut.

Outside of his own film ventures, Redford said he is particularly pleased that Sundance has continued to evolve in tandem with the industry as a whole, keeping pace with technological change via the inception of New Frontier — a program focused on the nexus between narrative and high-tech, as well providing an elevated platform for documentaries and shorts.

“We have always been on the ball,” said Redford, proud of the festival and the institute’s leading role in nurturing and developing alternative voices.

Indeed, independent film continues to morph in the wake of technological changes as online distribution and digital production change the economies of scale, and make it easier for independents to compete with the six major studios that control 90 per cent of the Canadian and U.S. box office, worth more than $100 billion per year.

Sundance has played a leading role in supporting and developing independent voices since 1981, and continues to grow. This year’s festival features 119 feature-length films representing 32 countries selected from 12,146 submissions.